


Sermon Fifteen and a Half

by Smaragdina



Category: Dishonored (Video Game), Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smaragdina/pseuds/Smaragdina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And Sharmat’s eyes darkened, for he saw the insult that lay buried within Vivec’s thrice-layered words; and the dark of them was like the night when all the planes of Oblivion that are stars have been snuffed out. And he stood up tall upon the sea-skin of the Void." A missing Sermon that tells of how Vivec met a black-eyed being in a place outside time and sang his skin-magic into submission. Dishonored / The Elder Scrolls crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sermon Fifteen and a Half

**The Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec: Sermon 15 and a Half**

And after Vivec had imparted to the Horator the First of Three Lessons, he wandered upon the surface of the sea. For as his feet had been bathed in blood to walk without damaging the skin of the earth, so too could he walk upon the waves without sinking. In time the Warrior-Poet came to a place from which he could turn from west to east and around again and not spy land, even with his powerful sight, nor touch it with his outstretched fingertips; and the sea and the sky were one, and the blue of one mated and bled with the blue of the other, and the Dragon of Time was caught in that bleeding and made still.

And here Vivec stood, and he waited. And here Sharmat appeared.

Sharmat, who is the False Dreamer, who is Dagoth, whose name would later scatter across the sky and darken it with all burning things.

Sharmat beheld Vivec in the howling void that is the sea inside the shell of the egg that is all, and he laughed. “You think you know me by knowing my words,” he said. His teeth were pearls, and the words fell out between them. “I am unknowable. I say ‘I bring a star, I bring an ancient sea, I tear down the pylons,’ and your echoing of me is pale and false. Your power is false.”

“We have touched the same heart,” said Vivec.

“’I am older than music,’ I say,” replied Sharmat. “You think yourself a poet? Everything that you speak has been created. I live inside your breath. I live inside your blood. You have trusted me with your most precious keeping. Everything that is stolen is a gift.”

“We have touched the same heart,” repeated Vivec, “we have listened to the same secrets. Everything that is stolen is stolen in turn. As I turn west I turn east. As a wave circles back, the gift received can be no greater than the worth of the gifted.”

And Sharmat’s eyes darkened, for he saw the insult that lay buried within Vivec’s thrice-layered words; and the dark of them was like the night when all the planes of Oblivion that are stars have been snuffed out. And he stood up tall upon the sea-skin of the Void, and these are the words that he spoke:

I AM THE SHARMAT

I AM OLDER THAN SONG

WHAT I BRING IS A DROWNING

WHAT I BRING IS A BURNING

THE POWER BURNS UPON THE SKIN

ALL THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY

TREMBLE AT MY BACK

I AM OLDER THAN SONG

WHAT I BRING IS AN END

AND A BEGINNING

And the Sharmat flung wide his arm, and he threw a wave of sea-mist over the land; and the Chimner that were caught in this mist fell down. And they rose up with designs upon their skin. And the power was in this design.

This is the way of clan tattoos upon the skin, which has since been taken by ALMSIVI and purged of its wickedness.

The power lives within the wind. The power lives within the fish which is within the rat within the hound within the man. The power lives within the frozen-extended jaws of the Dragon. The power lives within the infection and the creeping mind.

In those days the sickness grew and was not bound to the ash, and it scuttled through the streets, and the sickness walked upright amidst the Chimner and the Dwemer and all others, and the world was dark. And ALMSIVI has taken this time and re-woven it. And the words of truth are written upon the insides of clocks.

But Vivec spoke new words, and wove a poetry greater than the two-faced poetry of the Sharmat. And he saw that this was an evil thing. he took the power and threw it down, and the men that bore the marks were thrown down into the sea and the corruption upon their flesh was made visible and whole. And these are what are now known as Dreugh.

And Sharmat quailed under Vivec’s poetry, and Vivec saw that his eyes were rotten and dead and had been dead for many years. “You are not my enemy,” he said to the Sharmat that was not Sharmat, “you wear his skin like a new cloak. You are a creature of foam and sorcery, false as he is false.” And he touched the False-False Dreamer’s face, and his fingers sank into the emptiness of his eyes and tore them away so that he could only wear emptiness thereafter. And we went from that unwritten place.

He traveled to the web-weave of Mephala, and wound himself in a garment of white silk, and asked “have you whispered in the ear of a false sorcery of the Sharmat who lives within sky and sea and carves magic into my people’s skin? For I believe this falseness is a gift of yours.” But Mephala knew nothing.

He traveled to the libraries of Hermaeus Mora, and lit a candle to illuminate a thousand pages, and asked “have you read in all your Scrolls of a powerful sorcery of the Sharmat who sings a song of the wind and whose every eye holds another untruth? For I believe this power is a gift of yours.” But Hermaeus Mora knew nothing.

But Vivec in his wisdom constructed a greater poetry and song against this shadow of Sharmat in case he should come again.

Whether he be sorcery or truth or creature from the deep; for the tricks of the Sharmat and his servants are many and many-nested, and the truth of this one is beyond the sight of the seeing.

These are the seven songs that Vivec sang against the shadow of the shadow of corruption: look inwards, speak pure water, touch palm to palm, cover your soles with ash, devour the air, devour the good fruits, sing again.

This is the music that Vivec spoke:

The ship that wanders is filled with a round and faithful wind that bears it back again.

The greatest faith is an egg.

The constructed heart is a shadow.

The construct is a myth.

For you will weep many tears when he returns.

Reach heaven by not reaching.

For the waxing of the aspirant is the downcast eye and the shuffling feet.

For the words are strewn upon the shores of our devotion.

For the purity of bone is seven times most pure.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


End file.
